The Battlefield and Beyond

Essays on the American Civil War

Clayton E. Jewett

Publication Year: 2012

In The Battlefield and Beyond leading Civil War historians explore a tragic part of our nation’s history though the lenses of race, gender, leadership, politics, and memory. The essays in this strong collection shed new light on the defining issues of the Civil War era.
Orville Vernon Burton, Leonne M. Hudson, and Daniel E. Sutherland delve into the master-slave relationship, the role of blacks in the army, and the nature of southern violence. Herman Hattaway, Paul D. Escott, and Judith F. Gentry offer innovative perspectives on the influential leadership of President Jefferson Davis, Lieutenant-General Stephen D. Lee, and General Edmund Kirby Smith.
Other contributors consider politicians and the public: Michael J. Connolly and Clayton E. Jewett investigate how despotism contributed to Confederate defeat; David E. Kyvig and Alan M. Kraut examine the war’s impact on the Constitution and racial relationships with Jews; and Bertram Wyatt-Brown, Kenneth Nivison, and Emory M. Thomas discuss the critical function of memory in our understanding of Lincoln’s assassination.
The essays in The Battlefield and Beyond consider the fundamental issue of the Confederacy’s failure and military defeat but also expose our nation’s continuing struggles with race, individual rights, terrorism, and the economy. Collectively, this distinguished group of historians reveals that 150 years after the nation’s most defining conflict its consequences still resonate.

Cover

Title Page, Copyright, Dedication

Contents

Introduction

The inspiration for this collection of essays on the American Civil War
came about from historian Jon L. Wakelyn’s years of influence not only
on my career, but also that of countless students and colleagues engaged
in the field of southern and Civil War history. Mere mention of the Civil
War conjures thoughts of guns and...

I. RACE AND WARFARE IN THE SOUTH

The Silence of a Slaveholder: The Civil War Letters of James B. Griffin

When I first learned about a set of some eighty Civil War letters by
James B. Griffin, an Edgefield slaveholder and second in command
of the celebrated Hampton Legion, I realized the importance of this
treasure trove for learning about the unstudied middle officer ranks of
the Confederacy and white...

Robert E. Lee and the Arming of Black Men

By 1865, it was apparent to many southerners that the collapse of the
Confederate States was imminent. To stave off the inevitable, the southern
nation turned to a desperate measure to resuscitate the dying republic.
The last hope of saving the government was to tap black men as
a military resource. The...

Guerrilla Warfare, Democracy, and the Fate of the Confederacy

One of the most enduring explanations for why the Confederacy lost the
Civil War asserts that the Rebels were too democratic. First proposed
by David H. Donald as a variation on a theme by Frank L. Owsley, this
theory has survived, with some modification by recent scholars, as a
viable part of most multicausal explanations of Confederate defeat.
To date, the argument has rested...

II. LEADERSHIP IN THE CONFEDERACY

Jefferson Davis and Stephen D. Lee

Jefferson Davis and Stephen Dill Lee were a generation apart in age.
Davis was a native Mississippian, and Lee was from South Carolina. But
the Civil War brought them together, and events resulted in Lee’s move
to Mississippi, where he met and married a pretty lass, and he made
that state his home turf...

Evaluating Jefferson Davis as President of the Confederacy

Evaluating the losers in history can be a complicated process. For example,
consider the situation of a man named Edward John Smith. One day
he probably received congratulations and was told that he was going to
make history, for it was...

Edmund Kirby Smith’s Early Leadership in the Trans-Mississippi

The leadership of Lt. Gen. Edmund Kirby Smith as commander of the
Trans-Mississippi Department began in the midst of a Union advance
from New Orleans northward through southwestern Louisiana, a large
presence of Union troops along the Mississippi River in northeastern
Louisiana, an anticipated...

III. DESPOTISM AND CONFEDERATE DEFEAT

“Irresistible Outbreaks against Tories and Traitors”: The Suppression of New England Antiwar Sentiment in 1861

In a time of war the parameters of the freedom of press, speech, and association
always face scrutiny. Some see criticism of war, its tactics, and its justification
as tantamount to treason and a fatal weakening of national resolve
at a time when it needs to be united and resolute. Others see such criticism
as central to just and authentic...

Senator Williamson S. Oldham and Confederate Defeat

It was pitch dark the night Confederate Senator Williamson Simpson Oldham
crossed into Mississippi on his trip home to Texas at the end of the
Civil War, and he was tired. At first, Oldham wandered around almost aimlessly,
unable to find the suggested house for his stay, and caution was at a
premium, for Union soldiers could be lurking anywhere, and as a Confederate
Senator he was a...

IV. RECONSTRUCTION AND THE NEW SOUTH

Transforming Original Intent: The U.S. Constitution in the Civil War and Reconstruction Era

Those who in recent decades have argued that the original intent of the
Constitution’s framers should still be the guiding force in every instance
where the judiciary is called upon to resolve a constitutional dispute
would do well to devote attention to the work of Civil War historians,
Jon L. Wakelyn among others...

Goldberger and Gershwin: Two New York Jews Encounter the American South in the Early Twentieth Century

Between 1870 and the early 1920s, over 2.25 million Jews emigrated from
Central and Eastern Europe to the United States. Most of them entered
the United States through the port of New York, and the vast majority
spent at least some time in New York City, the place that historian
Moses Rischin dubbed...

V. MEMORY AND THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR

The Psychology of Hatred and the Ideology of Honor: Current Parallels in Booth’s Lincoln Conspiracies

For Americans at this hour, it is disturbing to think how easy, predictable,
and tragic are the assassinations of individuals who become targets of
ideological hatred, past and present. Most notably we have the case of
Abraham Lincoln’s murder in 1865. The story has been narrated and explored
many times, but...

Field of Mighty Memory: Gettysburg and the Americanization of the Civil War

On November 18, 1863, a train carrying President Lincoln and his entourage
entered the town of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. On the following
day, the dignitaries were scheduled to assemble atop a gentle ridge just
outside the town center to dedicate a cemetery to those who had fallen
there the previous July...

Of Health and History: The Museum of the Confederacy

Surely I visited the Confederate Museum on some school field trip while
I was growing up in Richmond. Two scrapbooks from my days at Ginter
Park Elementary School contain photographs of the Confederate White
House, but I cannot recall going to the place until I was conducting
research for my...

Jon L. Wakelyn’s Contribution

Jon Wakelyn’s impact on the field of history extends beyond his scholarly
research, writing, and editing. Like a stone dropped in a pond, his
contributions have radiated outward to influence a much larger circle
of students and colleagues whom he touched in various ways over the
course of years.
After receiving his Ph.D.......

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